Matthew 5:17-20

Christianity as the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets. This section is especially appropriate in St. Matthew's Jewish Gospel. St. Luke's sermon, being for Gentile readers, has nothing similar, and in his whole Gospel there is only one parallel v. (Luke 16:17). In one aspect Christ's attitude to the Law was conservative. He regarded Christianity as continuous with, and in a true sense identical with, the religion of the Law and the Prophets. He could even repeat the current teaching of the rabbis that the Law was eternal, and that not a jot or tittle could be taken from it. He severely rebuked such of His disciples as should presume to despise or undervalue the smallest part of the OT. They should not indeed be excluded from His kingdom, but they should be the least in it (Matthew 5:19). On the other hand, He made it clear that this eternal validity did not belong to the Law as Moses left it, but to the Law as 'fulfilled,' i.e. developed, or completed by Himself. He superseded the Law and the Prophets by fulfilling them, and He fulfilled them in all their parts. The spiritual and moral teaching of the Law and of the Prophets He freed from all lower elements and carried forward to their ideal perfection. The political teaching of the Law He completed by laying down the principles of the perfect state. Even the ceremonial law He fulfilled. The Law of Sacrifice was fulfilled in His sacrificial death, and in the spiritual sacrifices of prayer and praise and thanksgiving in which His precious death is pleaded. Circumcision became 'the circumcision made without hands,' i.e. Holy Baptism. The Passover became the Lord's Supper. The sanctification which the Law gave to one day in seven, was extended by Christ to every day in the week, and even the sabbath itself was, in a certain sense, perpetuated and continued by Him as the Christian 'Lord's Day.' Even such minor matters as ceremonial ablutions and the distinction of meats received their due fulfilment when Christ made possible the inward holiness which these outward observances symbolised.

Above all, the prophets were fulfilled by Christ in a most comprehensive way. He was not content simply to carry out their idea of the Messiah, wonderful as it was. He improved upon it, or, in His own words, 'fulfilled it.' No careful student of the OT. can fail to see how infinitely the actual NT. fulfilment exceeded the expectation of even the most enlightened OT. prophets. This, and not the mere literal fulfilment of their predictions, is what Jesus meant by 'fulfilling the prophets.'